Friday, September 09, 2005

On a reading spree!!!

Reading is something I always liked to do. But that mostly included reading newspapers. However, still I prefer seeing a movie then reading the novel on which it is based. (“I remember images”…hehe... my friend would be chuckling on reading this)

So, after having my tryst with Fountainhead I moved further and read just 2 more novels. I look forward to read many more :)

The immediate successor was Belva Plain's“Looking Back”. I had never heard about her (actually I am not an avid reader of novels, so don’t know many writers). However, the book was more of a time-pass kind of thing – nothing much to gain. It’s the story of 3 girls Amanda, Cecile and Norma, who start as good friends, and in due course of time, end up becoming total strangers.

The story line is more of the type that can be made into soap opera – if made in Hindi – the appropriate title would be “Badaltey Rishtey (which means – “Changing Relationships”). It has all the ingredients required for a serial to begin with a boom, with the TRP really soaring up, then going low – so you introduce some new characters and eventually the net is woven such that the actors themselves get entangled. Actually, the story line is not that cryptic – but when we Indians want to stretch something for a long time, we know we’ll manage too ;)

The second book is Dan Brown's“Deception Point”. The author is a person who really intrigues the reader and keeps him/her really wondering what’s going to happen next. I just loved the way he unfolds the story – short chapters, very brief, telling about an event and then moving on to next chapter, talking about another happening. Normally there are 3-4 threads simultaneously unrolling, making the narration very interesting.

The story is about…hehe…am not going to tell else you won’t read the book. However, it’s worth a read! I began reading and at a point felt…Ah…it the usual stuff about aliens and extra-terrestrials…but then Mr. Brown has his own ways of keeping all his cards in his hands and revealing them as and when required. Also, liked his style of italicizing text to convey thoughts of the character or to convey an intentional pun.

(The fact that a book talking about aliens doesn’t impress me that much is because I have watched The X-files, though I don’t know it’s storyline entirely, and no David Duchovny has nothing to do with me watching the series ;)) ).

There is more to the story then aliens and politics. It’s nice to see how things turn up, totally unexpectedly or rather how Dan makes us feel so. As of now it might be too early to say, but I’d really like to know more about how Dan manages to write such stuff – very filmi and I guess all of his books can be made into a movie (Da Vinci Code is being made into…isn’t it?).

So, hoping to end up reading first of all Dan’s other 3 books (have read Da Vinci a bit and can’t stop cursing myself for not completing it L ), I’d say I guess fiction/thriller is what I am liking to read now, don’t know when the mood changes!

P.S. If Deception Point is made into an Indian movie (but can it be made…it has a story :P , just kidding :D ) , can you suggest any title?